Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/108

 who make any artistic success possible in the England of to-day. Of course, there are more or less unclean cults and cliques which lurk in certain byeways and back-alleys of English life, hidden away, happily, from the most of us, and nauseating all right-thinking people by their rare appearances in the public streets. But I must say that on the whole the Press of England understands its duty where such persons are considered. A little sharp ridicule will often effect wonders where more serious rebuke would be inefficient, and I have not yet forgotten my delight when our great comic journal greeted the work of a certain notorious imitator of the old Popish painters with just this comment:—"Burne Jones? Burn Jones!" Then there was a person called Rossetti (a very un-English name it seems to me), and a man named Whistler, and I believe I have heard of an unhappy lad named Beardsley, who was cut off in the midst of his sins. But I am not speaking of these "æsthetes"; I do not wish to discuss a subject which is, to say the least